Arlene Stein

Although the Holocaust is increasingly visible in American life, it remains forbidden territory. We distance ourselves from it, bathing it in Hollywood homilies to the power of human kindness. We draw boundaries around it, housing it in concrete structures, hoping to contain it.

Over the past 10 years, my brother and I watched our mother lose her mind. Slowly, steadily, the knots in her head expanded, eventually branching out to stem the flow of blood to her brain so that she could no longer walk, talk or fulfill the basic tasks of life.She died a couple of months ago at age 75, not terribly old by today’s